The challenge of seeking a pastor

I apologize for not posting more often in recent weeks. Since last September I've been serving as the Transitional Pastor of a church. That responsibility plus my auction business has kept me rather busy and has limited the amount of time I can devote to social media and writing.

I'm certainly not complaining as I've enjoyed the work of Transitional Pastor. The church I'm serving has a lot of exciting ministries, a fantastic staff, and some amazing lay leaders. This has been a great opportunity to help prepare this church for their next pastor.

A few weeks ago the Pastor Search Team was ready to recommend an individual to the church to serve as Senior Pastor, but he decided he felt called to remain in his present ministry. This means the search will continue, and while the Team was disappointed, they accepted the decision as God's will and are moving forward.

This highlights the challenge many churches have today finding their next pastor. It is not unusual for a church to spend 18-24 months searching for a pastor. When I served as a Resource Minister in our Region I often cautioned search teams to not get in a hurry and to expect the process to take longer than many expect. It's far more important to get the right individual than it is to take the first person who expresses an interest in the position.

Why does it take so long for a good pastor search process? For one thing, at least in our denomination, there are not a large number of candidates seeking to move. Once a search team identifies several potential candidates that number is reduced even more as they compare the gifts and skills of the candidate to the needs of the church. It's possible that out of 15-20 possible candidates there may only be 2-3 who appear to be a good match for the church. Further interviews and reference checks may even reduce the number further.

For smaller churches the number of possible candidates may be even smaller. Studies have found that many pastors are unwilling to serve smaller congregations so the pool of available pastors is even smaller for these churches. Many of these churches are now seeking bivocational pastor, because these pastors are often found in or near the church's community those churches may find an even smaller number of candidates. People are not apt to be willing to move across country to serve in a bivocational church.

Every Sunday we ask the church I'm serving to be in constant prayer for our Pastor Search Team. Prayer is absolutely vital if the church is to identify the person God has prepared to serve a church.

So is patience. Some churches cannot stand to not have a pastor and will rush their search team to quickly find someone they can call to be their pastor. This often proves to be a mistake. Calling a pastor will impact the life of the church for years, and even decades to come, and is not something that should be rushed or entered into lightly.

If your church is currently seeking a pastor, pray for your search team. Encourage them. Respect their need to maintain confidentially. Prepare yourself for the next pastor. Oh, yea, pray and then pray some more.